In history of psychology textbooks, dualism
is always discussed in relation to the "body-mind issue," which has been debated
by every generation of philosophers and psychologists since Aristotle and Plato.
Ordinarily it is Descartes who is identified with the body-mind dualism,
since he argued that mental phenomena are not physical and belonging to the brain,
but spiritual belonging to the soul which was immortal, unlike the body which
was temporary. This outlook was traditional for European philosophers who were
almost always of Christian upbringing and schooling (including Newton, Darwin,
Locke, Hume, Wundt, Emerson, William James, Herbert Mead, Jung, Carl Rogers,
etc.). Although they were all dualists by culture and education, in their
scientific writings they were very careful not to admit dualism, but to keep it
away from their science.
This is why an atheistic science and an atheistic psychology literature has
developed. Since we teach from this literature there has been a strong and unified
tradition in every generation to exclude dualism from courses, journals, books,
and grant proposals. The effort has been very intense to eradicate the
concepts of God and the afterlife from science.

What I'm doing in this book is therefore
pertinent as an entry in the history of psychology records since I am a normal
scientist teaching at a public state university in a psychology department that
is behaviorally oriented. Of course I'm not claiming that my colleagues would
agree with me, but I think this is because they are not in a position to examine
all the evidence, namely the 30 volumes called the Writings of Swedenborg. But
even if they examined just one volume in full, I would predict that it would be
sufficient to realize that theistic psychology is a serious scientific proposal.
On the surface it sounds outlandish in the science of psychology to speak about
God, heaven, hell, the spiritual world, the science of correspondences in the
Bible, Divine scientific revelations, and so on. But this surface impression is
only because psychology has become thoroughly atheistic and materialistic. There is no proof for
atheism, or for materialism, hence this dedication to atheism and monism is a traditional prejudice
that resists the future growth of psychology into the highly beneficial
knowledge of regeneration and rational spirituality.

Theism in psychology is an approach that
has valid rational proof in the Writings of Swedenborg. My purpose in this book
is to examine some of this evidence with a view to showing their validity and
breadth of understanding. It would be extremely beneficial for public schools to
teach theistic psychology throughout the school grades in all countries of the
educated world where science is understood. One of the applied theistic
psychology research projects I look forward to is to create theistic science
concepts for children all grade levels. For instance, the concept of "God" has
to be introduced differently at each grade level so that students can think of
the next step in their rational consciousness of God. The more children grow in
rationality the better they can understand the infinitely complex idea of God.
The more we understand the idea of God the more we can love Him and the more we
can receive from Him--the ability to change character, immortality, unlimited
conjugial happiness, all the virtues, unlimited intelligence and knowledge.

Any scientist or educated person can read
the Writings of Swedenborg and look at this evidence since it is presented
rationally by a superb scientist. To reject this offhand, without examining it, is
a negative bias that is transmitted by atheistic science taught in schools and normalized
in a secular press. Hence many college students react to the idea of bringing
God into science, as being a bad idea or an impossible one. The majority of students believe in the
actual real existence of God running people's lives and the world. But they have
been exposed to atheistic science since kindergarten where teachers are
reluctant to mention God given the legal issue of separation of Church and
State. It is not uncommon for teachers to interpret this official separation to
mean that they are not allowed to mention God in class. And of course the
textbooks they use do not mention God either. But this is a profound misunderstanding that teachers carry from their
own education and upbringing. The fact is that theistic science is not Church or
religion. God is neither religion nor church. To connect them is only from this
misunderstanding propagated by atheistic science.

I've had students tell me that importing God into science is
a bad idea because they have been abused by a priest as children. Others have
said that they refuse to believe in God since religion is so corrupt. Others
have said that you are not allowed to bring God into education. All these types
of objections are based on the common misunderstanding that religion and God are
the same. This idea has been promoted by atheistic science. But in
theistic psychology it is clearly seen that God and religion are different
concepts that must be distinguished. Religion cannot be scientific, but God is.
Sacred Scripture in the literal historical sense is religion, but the underlying
correspondential sense is universal science (see answer to prior Question).
Theistic psychology gives people the freedom and knowledge to separate their
problematic religious experiences from the scientific concept of God.

Theistic psychology is science--universal,
empirical, rational, objective, applied. Religion and Church on the other hand,
are historical-cultural-institutional entities, and therefore political. But
theistic psychology is not political but rational and panhuman. By rational
definition there can be only one God, since God is infinite, and to talk of two
infinites is illogical. Hence there can be only one infinite God. God's
relationship and interaction is with each individual, not with a cultural form
of this or that religion. Further, God's relationship and interaction with
atheists is not less than the interaction with people of religion and faith.
Hence the way God manages and influences each person's thoughts and feelings is
universal, not religious or cultural. This is what makes science theistic. To
deny God in science is a disservice to humankind and a belittling of the
usefulness of science. To deny religion in science is an appropriate thing to
do, just as we deny politics in science (e.g. facts by Democrats vs. facts by
Republicans--there is only one kind of fact recognized in science).

Perhaps there ought to be a relaxing of
the veto power against the use of God in psychology. Instead of being dead set
against it, why not see where it leads? Especially since the proposal is made by
a regular professional scientist like myself, along with dozens of others like
myself who are active scientists (see
Reading List).

The concept of "substantive dualism" is
far more advanced than the dualism of Descartes which was hardly different from
St. Augustine's theology centuries earlier, who had based his idea on the
scientific revelations contained in the New Testament. The scientific
revelations on dualism contained in the Writings of Swedenborg are completely
objective and empirical. Swedenborg was given the special and unique ability of
"dual citizenship," which means he was able to be conscious in both the physical
body and the spiritual body. For 27 years on a daily basis he kept notes of his
extraordinary observations in the spiritual world. No one in the history of
science has had such a direct access to the spiritual world and its inhabitants.

Swedenborg kept track of his interviews
with thousands of people who arrived into the spiritual world within 30 hours
after the death of the physical body (see "resuscitation" section in Chapter 1).
He carried out many experiments with the help of those there who had the power
and knowledge to assist him. And much other evidence besides this on hundreds of
topics and areas of human behavior--the anatomy of the mind, ethnic differences,
psychotherapy, education, marriage, child development, religion, resuscitation
of the dead, physics, chemistry, physiology, anatomy, synergy, love, truth,
conscience, consciousness, meaning, language, and much more.

You can see from these considerations that
Swedenborg's substantive dualism is far more advanced than that of Descartes or anyone
else before or since. It makes sense since no scientist of reputation has had
direct observational access to the spiritual world and the process of the
resuscitation of the dead. Descartes and others may have had the idea that God
exists, that God created the soul, and the soul is immortal. But since they had
no access to the spiritual world they wrongly assumed that our immortal life
will take place in this world after its destruction and re-creation by God. Upon
that re-creation, all the souls that have been deprived of a body will then be
re-embodied into new physical bodies that will last forever. But all this is a
fantasy. They had no empirical evidence no observation platform. But with
Swedenborg's special introduction into dual citizenship it became immediately
evident by observation that everyone whose physical body dies is immediately
resuscitated and reappears in a spiritual body in the spiritual world.

So the essence and basis of substantive
dualism is the direct evidence from Swedenborg that there is a spiritual world
and that our mind or spiritual body is born there and stays there. The physical
body and the spiritual body, or mind, develop together and mature together. But
whereas the physical body gets old and deteriorates to death, the spiritual body
remains as a young adult, and forever so. When the physical body is dead,
the conscious mind switches during resuscitation into the spiritual body and
from then on our sensory input is solely from the events in our spiritual (or
mental) environment. This life then continues to eternity outside time and
place.

You can see therefore that theistic
science, theistic psychology, and substantive dualism are all connected and
based in the Writings of Swedenborg. Remove these scientific revelations and we
fall back into Cartesian dualism or some of its modern versions in neuroscience.
This is purely speculative since the brain contains no clues about the mind, but
only about its own electrical and chemical firings, which belong to the brain, not the
mind. The mind is a spiritual organ containing parts and sub-parts, just like
the brain and body. In the Writings of Swedenborg we find a complete anatomy and
spiritual physiology of this organ.

Further definitions and descriptions of
substantive dualism are given in the
Reading List, including theistic science,
spiritual geography, spiritual psychobiology, spiritual psychology, spiritual
psycholinguistics, and others.